Eph 1324 11/21/90
A. Introduction.
1. There are three ways in which believers reject Bible doctrine.
a. Refusing to hear the teaching of the Word of God on a consistent basis.
b. Hearing the teaching of Bible doctrine but refusing to metabolize it; hence, the failure to convert gnosis into epignosis.
c. Metabolizing doctrine so that it exists in the stream of consciousness but the doctrine becomes unusable or forgotten.
2. When the believer, under one or more of these three conditions, has rejected Bible doctrine, two things happen.
a. There is the accumulation of scar tissue formed in the seven compartments of the stream of consciousness. This means that soon the things you have learned are forgotten or set aside, so that when stress and adversity occurs, you fall flat on your face.
b. Dissociation occurs resulting in the accumulation of garbage in the subconscious.
3. When a believer has too much garbage in the subconscious and maximum scar tissue of the soul, that believer is extremely vulnerable to the functions of his sin nature, and he enters into a state of confusion.
4. This state of confusion overflows from cosmos diabolicus, so that the thinking of the believer involved cannot be distinguished from the thinking of the human viewpoint of the unbeliever.
5. Such believers add the emotional complex of sins plus the arrogance complex of sins to their state of confusion.
6. Confusion demands concentration. If you have not been concentrating under the filling of the Spirit in Bible class, do not expect to be able to concentrate when faced with the confusion created by Satan’s cosmic systems. A thought can make or break you. What you really are is what you think.
B. Principles.
1. When believers have too much garbage in the subconscious and when believers have maximum scar tissue of the soul, there is nothing you can do to satisfy them.
2. From the emotional complex of sins, such a believer may become irrational and confused.
3. From the arrogance complex of sins, such a believer becomes bitter and implacable, jealous and vindictive, and self-righteous. There is nothing you can do to please them.
4. Implacable believers must be treated in grace. You cannot argue with an irrational person.
5. Beware that you do not lose your own integrity or spiritual strength in interacting with such persons. Do not let people with mental attitude and verbal sins drag you down with them.
6. This is where three factors in your life must synchronize.
a. You must have the foundation of humility. When you are criticized, there is always something you can learn from it, but you must have humility.
b. You must have the professionalism of understanding the mechanics of God’s will, plan, and purpose for your life as well as the problem solving devices.
c. You must have the spiritual strength to use the shield of faith (the faith-rest drill) in the environment of confusion and disaster. This is your integrity and it comes from inculcation of Bible doctrine.
7. Implacable believers can only be treated by you in grace; for only God can deal with implacable believers. Therefore, the importance of leaving them in the Lord’s hands.
C. Additional Principles.
1. The environment of confusion causes stress. If there is confusion in some area of life (the home, romance, friendship), then there is stress in that area.
2. Confusion demands concentration—bringing reality from doctrine into the stream of consciousness. A thought can make or break you.
a. Marcus Aurelius, “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
b. Prov 23:7, “As a person thinks in his heart, so he is.”
c. Gal 6:3, “If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
3. Your soul is a spiritual battlefield. What you think determines whether you are winning or losing. Eph 4:23, “Then become refreshed [renewed] by means of the Spirit by means of your thinking.”
4. You must learn doctrine before you can think doctrine. You cannot think what you do not know.
5. Arrogance is confusion of mind which matches the confusion of life without Bible doctrine. Therefore, there is a divine mandate given in Rom 12:2-3, “Stop being conformed to this world but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking, that you may prove what the will of God is, namely the divine good production, the well pleasing to God, the mature status quo. For I say through the grace which has been given to me to every one who is among you, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine.”
a. Stop being conformed to this world means to stop being in a state of confusion. The world thinks human viewpoint.
b. Thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance in confusion.
6. 1 Cor 10:12, “Therefore, let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.”
7. Phil 2:5, “Keep on having this mental attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
8. Phil 3:15, “Therefore, as many as are mature believers, let us continue objective thinking. Furthermore, if you have a different mental attitude in something God will reveal that to you.”
9. Concentration on Bible doctrine in time of stress and confusion is mandated. Col 3:2, “Keep thinking objectively about things above [divine viewpoint] and not about things on the earth [human viewpoint].”
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved
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